ABSTRACT
This chapter examines relationships between different facets of personal theology, the relationship between theodicy and worldview. Coding of responses for theodicy focused primarily on belief, using several general categories as derived from responses themselves: Deterministic with reference to a deity, Deterministic without reference to a deity, Humanistic and Randomistic. Humanists and randomists appear to respond quite differently than determinists to tragic or unexpected negative life events. There is some consistency to an underlying assumption that tragedies, traumas and other such negative events should not occur. The dominant theodical orientation among young adults was deterministic, with a frequency over thrice that of either humanistic or randomistic orientations. There are a number of deterministic theodicies. One type may be described as vaguely theistic deterministic theodicy. A primary difficulty with any linear model of theodicy results from how one arranges the continuum of theodical beliefs. There are two competing linear models: First linear model of theodicies and Second linear model of theodicies.
